There is for Every Man
by Ziggy Sternenstaub
Summary: One human. One elf. Two men who never met, but should have. A tale of Artemis Entreri and Zaknafein Do'Urden.


Hi. I'm Ziggy, and this is the first FR story I've written in years. It's about Artemis Enteri and Zaknafein Do'Urden and I'm fairly proud of it, but I have to warn you that it contains some fairly graphic scenes of violence (being about, well, Entreri and Zaknafein), including one scene in particular that I was rather disturbed about myself. So if you don't like that sort of thing, I suggest not reading.

For those of you who are still here, this story takes place in three different time periods, so the convention will be:

_Italics_ stand for the past and future.

Plain script stands for the present.

**Bold** script stands for my "narrator" character perceiving or mentally commenting on the past or future in some fashion.

Just so that no one is completely confused.

Enjoy. And, of course, review:D

There is for Every Man

by Ziggy Sternenstaub

One man in a thousand, Solomon says,  
Will stick more close than a brother.  
And it's worth while seeking him half your days  
If you find him before the other. --Rudyard Kipling, The Thousandth Man

Shalani tugs the waist of her ragged skirt up over her hips thoughtfully, hands smooth with an accustomed professionalism as she watches the fat john out of the corner of her right eye. The man is lying on the bed, filling his expensive mahogany pipe with leaf. Once the bowl brims to his apparent satisfaction, he lifts the slim white candle from the bedside table and lights his sated diversion. Soon the rich scent of pipe weed fills the room. Shalani laces up her bodice, still keeping a close eye on the fat man. She chooses her customers with as much care as she can afford, only accompanying those men (or dwarves, or halflings, elves on the rare occasion...) who seem unlikely to physically assault a whore. Often she gets a deep instinctual feeling of rightness, or of danger. Sometimes, on very rare occasions, she gets magic pictures in her head, showing herself beaten, raped, or even killed. Those are the times she runs, but she's never told anyone about these strange experiences. They'd lock her up.

"Excellent leaf," the fat man grunts, the first coherent words he's expressed since they'd agreed to the terms of their business an hour before.

"Of course, sir," Shalani quietly agreeds.

"You smoke?"

"No, sir."

"Good for you, girl. No good habit for a lady to be doing. Not that you're one of those," he chuckles, "but we can all try to be better than we are."

"Can we?" Shalani asks absently, pulling on her sturdy boots.

"Of course we can," the fat man confirms with a jolly, affected laugh. "What are they teaching you girls these days?"

"Nothing much, sir."

"What, didn't you go to school?"

"No, sir. Didn't have the coin."

"Laziness," the fat man snorts. "Sheer and simple laziness is all it is, and you know it. Don't want to be bothered and then you whine to the government to save you when you find you can't doing anything with your lives! It's no wonder you end up selling yourselves like this. Sad, sad thing."

The fat john shakes his head with a pity and regret as false and affected as his hearty chuckles were, and Shalani clenches her teeth in a rage she tries not to show. Just once she wishes she could switch places with one of these arrogant bastards, let him live a day in_her_ shoes, walking the alleyways from noon until well past midnight and then coming home to a needy child, a dying sister, and an abusive lover and his freeloading brother. Let this fat son-of-a-bitch listen to the screams, the arguments, let him take the punch to the face that is never long in coming after Belrigger starts drinking and ranting about how much money it's costing them to take care of Bethana. Costing _them_, Shalani sneers to herself. As if the man ever lifts a finger to help. And this despite the fact that Bethana more than earns her keep by keeping house and cooking for all of them.

"If you won't be needing me any longer, I'll be going now, sir," Shalani tells the fat man, who waves a disinterested hand towards the door, not bothering to speak. Shalani smiles with false courtesy and picks up the coins from the table, concealing them in the hidden pouch in her skirts. She lets out an accustomed sigh of relief the moment she closes the door behind her, making her way down the stairs and out of the inn with quiet haste.

Already it is dark outside, and she debates whether or not to go home early. If she does, she doesn't doubt she'll hear about it from Belrigger, but she's just made enough to justify the loss of a few hours of wandering about in the dark. Decided, the woman starts off to an even rougher end of Memnon's inner core, navigating the casually strewn rubbish with the accustomed ease of a native. From inside the houses she passes, Shalani hears voices raised in enjoyment, calls of welcome, the rough melodies of popular songs, the even rougher melodies of untrained sex. Briefly, the woman allows herself to become melancholy, envying what she perceives as spontaneity, the unrestrained passions of the unknown figures who live inside of those houses. She hasn't truly enjoyed sex since she was fifteen years old, and only stays with Belrigger because the dangers of living alone outweigh the dangers of living with him. And, maybe, because she'd be lonely without him.

The devil you know, Shalani acknowledges with grim humour.

To her relief, only a single candle seems to burn behind the thin curtain of her shack's facade. Letting herself inside, she sees only Bethana, wrapped in blankets despite the summer heat and paging the holy book of some god she's started talking about recently. Shalani can't remember which one.

Her sister looks up as she sits down next to her.

"You're home early."

"Don't worry; I made enough."

"I'm not worried," Bethana assures her, but the tight set to her mouth says otherwise. Shalani does not bother to correct her. The arguments have all been had, the objections been made, and all of them years ago.

"I made a stew. It's by the fire. Artemis said it was very good," Bethana reports happily.

"That's nice. I'll have some in a few minutes."

Bethana's mouth tightens again, and she glances down at her book. "He misses you."

Shalani stares. "Who does?"

"Your son! The boy is already six years old, and he never sees you. He's here all day with that sack of offal you call a man, pardon my language, and he never sees you. He wonders where you go."

"Hasn't anyone told him?"

"I make sure they don't."

"He'll find out eventually, you know."

"When he'd old enough," Bethana insists, and then laughs bitterly. "If there could be such a time. But if there is, it's not now. You should spend more time with him, though."

"I don't have time to give him, Bethana. If I don't go out, he doesn't eat. It's that simple. I'm doing what I can for him. Where's Belrigger?"

"Tavern," Bethana says simply.

"His brother too, I suppose, or you never would have called Belrigger a sack of offal."

"You're right. But he's still is one."

Shalani laughs. "No he's not. He's a sack of _shit_."

Bethana shrieks with laughter and then breaks into a fit of coughing.

"Mama?"

Shalani whips around at the new voice and sees her son standing in hall. Small and slim, his face is a precariously pretty setting for his grave, grey, all-too-intelligent eyes, and in those moments when Shalani still feels anything other than bitterness, she fears for him.

"What are you doing out of bed?" she asks irritably.

"I heard your voice. I wanted to say goodnight."

"And then stay up until morning, no doubt," she grumbles in return.

"Not really," the boy shrugs. "I just wanted to see you."

Guilt tugs at Shalani's much-abused conscience.

"Fine. Come over here; you can sit up with us for a while, but as soon as we see your father coming, I want you to run right into bed."

The boy nods with unnerving solemnity and crawls onto the couch between the two women.

"What did you do today, Artemis?" she asks awkwardly.

"I read a book," the boy reports.

"You can't read," his mother scoffs.

"Yes, I can, Mama. Aunt Beth taught me."

"When?" Shalani exclaims with astonishment.

The boy thinks it over. "Three months ago. I think. I still can't understand all of the words, but Aunt Beth gives me books to read so I'll get better."

Shalani turns to her sister for confirmation. "Is this true?"

"Oh, yes. We have quite the little scholar on our hands," the other woman teases.

Shalani frowns. "What does Belrigger have to say about this?"

"He doesn't know," Bethana says, just as her sister expects.

"Would Papa-hal be upset?" Artemis asks curiously. "I really wanted to show him, but Aunt Beth wouldn't let me." Lingering resentment colours this statement.

"I don't know..." It is hard to say whether the man who is being generous enough to raise Artemis as his own, even giving him his family name, might be pleased that the boy had a potentially employable skill, or whether he might resent this evidence of usurping intelligence. "But just keep it to yourself for now."

"If I must," the boy grumbles.

"Yes, you must," Shalani confirms, but finds herself pleased enough at the child's accomplishment that the words emerge lightly, teasingly. "Now tell me about this book you read today."

"It was about a man who had a flying ship. He left Toril and went travelling in the stars. He makes friends with people there, and also meets people who don't like him very much. There was a lot of fighting, and in the end the man gets very rich and comes back to Faerun to teach other people how to make flying ships," the boy reports dutifully. He seems pleased with this story, but not overawed.

" Flying ships! What will they think of next," Shalani says disdainfully.

"Actually, the book says that they really exist. There's a note from the man who wrote it at the beginning and he says that--"

Shalani cuts her son off. "Don't be stupid, Artemis. There's no such thing as a flying ship, and you shouldn't believe everything that people tell you. People usually lie."

The light of excitement in Artemis' eyes dims just a little bit more. "I don't think they're always lying, Mama."

"Yeah, well, what do you know. You're just a kid."

Artemis stares at his mother, stricken.

"Shali," Bethana hisses reproachfully.

"What? I live in the real world, Beth," her sister snaps, more defensively than she intended.

"He's six years old. He doesn't need to live in the real world yet."

Shalani laughs coldly and stands up, walking over to the window and peeking out through the curtain. This always happens when she comes home. Often she thinks it might be better just to stay outside all night. She can feel her son's eyes reproachfully boring into her back.

"Come sit next to me, Artemis," she hears her sister saying quietly.

There is a slight noise as the boy shifts to the other side of the coach. Shalani glances back once, seeing Bethana put a comforting arm around the boy's narrow shoulders.

"How about Auntie Beth tells you a story, hmm?" Bethana gently suggests.

"About what?" The childish music of Artemis' voice recovers only slowly from his mother's dissonant comments.

"Well, I was reading a story myself the other day, you know, and it was very interesting—very beautiful." There is a wistful note in Bethana's voice—already mourning her coming loss. Shalani's hands become fists.

"Does it have adventure?" Artemis asks eagerly.

"Well, now, that depends on what kind of adventure you're talking about."

The little boy emits a note of disdain. "There's only one type of adventure. Swords, and travelling and monsters and fights!"

"It has some of that," Bethana concedes in a voice that tells Shalani that she's going to make up some of that and put it in a story that didn't have any of that to begin with, just to please this oblivious child.

Shalani fights down the urge to tell her sister to stop pampering the boy. She feels some amorphous emotion gather in her throat as it occurs to her, not for the first time, that Bethana is more of a mother to the boy than she is.

"Yes, I'll hear it. As long as it has adventure in it." The boy sounds annoyingly serious, answering his aunt's simple question.

"Very well," Bethana replies, trying to sound just as serious; failing. The ring of amusement is barely concealed from the silly child. "Once upon a time, there was a boy, just a few years older than you. He lived with his parents in a city very much like this one and was usually very happy. There was just one problem—he didn't have any real friends. None of the children that lived near him understood him, because this was a very clever boy."

Shalani recognises clearly that her sister is tailoring the story to Artemis, making the boy in the story similar to the boy listening to it.

"Most kids aren't," Artemis agrees. "Like the kids on our street. They're so dumb. All they want to do is steal things and throw rocks at soldiers and the priests."

"You know you shouldn't say things like that, Artemis," Bethana reminds the boy. "Just because you're cleverer than they are doesn't mean you're allowed to say cruel things."

"Sorry," the boy mutters. "I just know how the kid in the story feels; that's all."

"I know you do. Well, it is said that there is for every man in the world one true friend, one man who is capable of truly understanding him, the other half to his mind and soul. The boy knew these stories, and he wished very much that the he might find this great friend, and so when this boy was old enough, when he'd learned to fight with a sword and ride a camel and take care of himself, he decided to go out into the world and look for him."

"I want to learn to ride a camel, too!"

"Someday you will."

Shalani squints outside of the curtain, watching the street and knowing without having to think about it too much that she's keeping an eye out for the return of Belrigger. With a bit of luck he'll stay at the tavern until the small hours of the morning, but she can never be too careful. She's been wrong before.

**An inky black shadow catches her eye and Shalani blinks, uncertain of what she's seen. **

"A really big camel. A really mean one that spits and bites all of the time."

"I doubt you'll have trouble finding one like that, my boy."

"More than the others, I mean," Artemis corrects himself; Shalani can almost hear him blush.

**There is was again! Shalani squints and presses her face forwards into the wooden window frame. The shadow moves out onto the street and she suppresses a scream, unable to believe what it is that she is seeing. A drow elf! Right there in front of her and bold as belly dancer twisting in her veils! **

**A late night walker, no doubt a drunk, staggers up to the elf and walks right through him. The urge to run frantically about screaming "Drow!" passes and Shalani closes her eyes in drained relief. It is another strange mind picture she was seeing, but why she would see a drow on a Memnon street she doesn't know. **

"I'll bet he was riding a really mean camel, too. What's the boy's name, Aunt Beth?"

"Mazeppa. I don't know about his camel, but it was a hard day when he started out into the desert. Everyone told him not to leave; it was too hot and there were stories of bandits roaming just outside of the city. Of course, he left anyway, the hot afternoon sun at his back, listening to his mother crying as he left."

"She didn't want him to leave," Artemis says softly. Shalani winces.

"Of course she didn't," Bethana retorts with false hardiness. "She was his mother!"

Shalani doesn't even know what that word means anymore. Artemis, too, is silent. Perhaps he doesn't know either.

Wisely, Bethana does not pursue the subject. "The desert sand shifted under the hooves of Mazeppa's camel, which kept trying to throw him off and bite him--"

"I knew it." Satisfaction.

"Yes, of course you did. It's too much to slip a fast one by our little scholar, eh, Shalani?"

"Eh?" Shalani asks absently, watching for the return of the apparition.

"Oh, you're hopeless!" Her sister is beyond exasperation.

"Then what happened?" Artemis asks impatiently.

**The street is utterly empty, the curtain is blowing about Shalani's head as she sticks her face out the square hole of the window, and the elf appears again. He's standing in the moonlight this time, more handsome than any elf she's ever seen. He's covered in armour and has some sort of uniform on. He wears his fine white hair in a warrior's topknot. His black skin gleams, almost glitters in the light, and the red eyes are like what she imagines wet rubies must look like. The drow wears scabbards for two swords, each at one side, and Shalani is confused. She's never heard of anyone using two swords at once. Maybe one was there just in case he lost or broke the first one? **

**She stares right at the elf, tries to catch his eye, but he seems to stare right through her. Shalani's heart beats rapidly; her mouth is dry. **

"Then what happened..."

Her sister's voice interrupts Shalani's rapt contemplation, and she blinks. When her eyes open again, the vision has disappeared. She bites back a curse, feeling saddened at the loss of such beauty, one of the few truly beautiful things she's ever seen. Even if it was just an illusion. All beautiful things were illusionary anyway, Shalani knows with a grim certainty born of a lifetime of confirmation.

"Then Mazeppa lost sight of the city. It disappeared behind the dunes and all he could see was sand, sand, and more sand. He rode for a day, sweating in the sun and shivering in the cold at night and wondering when he might find some adventures."

"I'd wonder that, too," Artemis says. It's clear that he's already wondering when this story might get good, his interest in Mazeppa's endless desert march waning.

"He didn't have to wait long!" Bethana's voice has the ring of a conquering sultan's; she plays her trump with glee. "The next morning he woke up, only to see that he was surrounded by vicious, evil, plundering desert bandits!"

Artemis cries out with joy.

"You're not supposed to be happy about it," Bethana chides.

"But it was getting boring. Now he can do something."

"Boys," Bethana snorts with amusement. "Well, of course, he was horrified. He saw his camel being gently lead away by the marauders, not even biting them once, and he thought: 'I always knew that was an evil animal!'"

Artemis blows a raspberry and laughs.

"Of course, it doesn't take long before Mazeppa was lead away just like that, off to the bandit camp where the robbers tied him up to a huge tent! He didn't know what they were going to do with him, or how he was going to get away. It was very tense," Bethana warns.

"He found a way out; I know it," Artemis swears with the sort of a assurance only a six-year-old human can manage.

**Blackness deeper than anything Shalani has ever known falls over her eyes and for a one second she is sure that she is dead. Someone has crept into their shack and stabbed her in the back, and this is death. She can't breathe. **

**Slowly, a red light creeps into the edges of her vision, then green, then purple, then bright yellow, hot colours that grip her eyes with their strangeness, and her field of vision comes into focus again. She lets out her breath in a rush if relief--except what she is seeing was not a Memnon street, but something so strange that she has no basis of comparison to even begin to identify it. A thousand colours light up a street just as ragged and poor looking as her own, but instead of hovels this street is lined with little stone dwellings, and instead of open sky above her head, she sees a solid black ceiling of stone. The stone dwelling closest to her briefly opens and a small figure runs out. **

**It's always hard to judge the age of an elf, but if this were a human child, Shalani would say that the kid were no older than her own son. The elf kid is dressed in drab black rags that briefly catch the heat of his body in certain places, shining soft pinks and yellows. His skin appears to be hundreds of different shades of reds and whites and purples, but looking at the boy's face, it occurs to Shalani that this child looks very much like the drow she saw not five minutes before. **

"_Zaknafein Sev'ron! Where do you think you're going?" A stern female voice emerged from the hut and an equally stern female face peered out. _

"_Mother," the boy acknowledged with a soldier's severity. "You told me that I could go out once I finished my chores." _

"_I know that. Where are you going?" _

"_To the end of the street. To watch the dwarves unload their wagons. Kallea told me they might have some toys this time," the child, Zaknafein, reported promptly. _

"_So what? You have no money. Are you expecting to steal something?" _

_The boy shrugged noncommittally. _

"_Besides, I don't want you talking to those filthy creatures. They'll pick you up and put you in their caravans to sell in some awful place: Ched Nasad, or Skullport, or even the Surface where the bright ball of fire will burn your eyes right out your head!" _

_The child shifted uncomfortably. "I won't talk to them." _

"_You'd better not, or you'll be peeling your disobedient hide off the floor for the next week, which is exactly where it will end up once I beat it off you for ignoring my commands. You'll give your father a rest from his housework, because you'll be doing all of it." _

_The boy glanced over his shoulder, unfazed by these dire threats. _

**Shalani is thoroughly confused. Why would the boy's **_**father**_** be doing the housework? **

"_Fine, get lost. But be back before dinner or you won't get any," the belligerent elf female snorted. _

_The child did not waste time mincing any more words, running off at top speed, a bright little blur. _

**Shalani walks slowly up the street, hoping to catch him, wondering what this is, wondering at this vision that is more complex and real than any dream or vision she's ever known. **

_The child, Zaknafein Sev'ron, was at the end of the street, watching silently as a group of swearing, bickering, funny-looking dwarves unloaded fruit and clothes and books from their enormous carts. _

"_Hey, kid! What're ye doin' 'ere?" one of the dwarves grunted. "Thought we told you to beat it last time." _

"_Eh, get lost or we'll send ye back home to mummy in pieces." _

_One of the other dwarves laughed coarsely. "Ha! It's only a boy kid. Bet 'is mummy'd just tell us to take the meat back and sell it at market—so long as she got half the profits!" _

_The dwarves exploded into mocking laughter, patting their fellow on the back for his biting wit. Perhaps that is the reason why the witty dwarf didn't see the tiny blur of elf launch itself at him, knocking the solid labourer down with the force of his enraged momentum. The child, half the size of his victim, stabbed at the dwarf's throat with a small, sharp belt knife. He moved almost more quickly than the eyes could follow, but the blood that spilled out of the dwarf's neck was all too clear. The creature gasped and gurgled, trying to breath; he only hastened the end. The child leaped up and took off at full speed as the entire group of dwarves let out an outraged, violent howl and began to chase after the child, hell-bent on revenge. _

**Shalani wonders whether the boy did it because he was defending his mother's reputation, or because he suspected what the dwarf said might be true. **

**No. No woman could be so cruel to her child. **

**...could she? **

"...he sat there all day, tied to the tent, sweating and almost wishing that he'd stayed home, until he heard a hissing noise from behind the tent. Someone was trying to get his attention!"

Shalani blinks, pulling her head back inside the window, surprised to find herself again in Memnon. From the sound of the her sister's storytelling, no more than a second has gone by. That does not surprise her as much; it is usually that way with these strange, rare visions. This one was so long, though! She is tempted to wonder if she might be going crazy. Uneasily, she steps back from the window and seats herself again next to her son. For an instant, his eyes wander from his aunt and he smiles, tentatively, an almost-crushed little spark of hope in his eyes. Shalani remembers the cruel harshness of the elf mother, the stiff unease of the elf boy, the child's murderous fury, and forces herself to smile back at her son. The hope that flashes over his small, pretty face makes her swallow against a lump in her throat.

"Mazeppa looked around cautiously, trying to see who it might be. A face appeared next to him, a face as dark as the other bandits. This was the face of a boy of Mazeppa's own age, and he was smiling!"

"He's going to let him go," Artemis predicts knowingly.

"Clever as always," Bethana congratulates her nephew. "The new boy signaled to Mazeppa to keep quiet, which he did, waiting while his bonds are untied. Then the strange boy pulled him off behind a new set of tents."

**Shalani glances at the window again, looking for Belrigger, and the room goes black. She forces herself to remain calm, wondering if more magic pictures are coming. Never has this happened so often to her. **

**She no longer hears Artemis or Bethana. **

**Slowly, the bright colours come into focus.**

"_You'll go and you'll like it, Zaknafein!" a strident female voice screamed._

"_I don't know anyone there!" a young male voice exclaimed in return. _

**Shalani looks around, taking in the inside of a small stone dwelling. The elf mother she saw before is there, screaming at a young male elf. His body has changed; he looks now like an almost-grown adolescent, but Shalani recognises the child from the last vision. **

"_You don't know anyone here either, foolish male! You have no friends." _

"_I know people. I just don't like any of them," the boy sneered. "And now you force me to sell myself to some noble house where I will meet a whole new set of unlikable people whom I don't know. And make myself fodder for some stupid inter-House war at the same time, before I even have the chance to go to the Academy. I won't throw my life away!"_

"_Stupid boy," the female said coldly. "We are commoners. Whether or not you go the Academy, it is still your destiny to throw your life away for someone." _

"_I want more than that!" Zaknafein snapped. _

**The boy is fierce, unyielding, but Shalani sees despair in his eyes, the same despair she sees on the streets of Memnon everyday. The despair of those who have no choice--who have no futures. **

"_What you want is unimportant. Daermon N'a'shezbaernon is looking for new soldiers; you go to their weapon master and make sure you are hired, or I will march you down to the auction block and sell you at market. You'll get all the training you want there, and being attached to a noble house you'll probably be able to go to the Academy quicker than you would here—and better protected for being able to say you belong to a house. Unattached commoners don't survive long. Besides, you're already seventeen; I certainly won't support you in my home for any longer. And you're trouble! You like starting fights so much—make yourself useful to someone while you do it!" _

_A new, strikingly good-looking male elf entered the room, his eyes carefully avoiding the action. _

"_Father--" Zaknafein began. _

"_Don't involve your father in this, boy," the female snapped. "What he says, what he thinks, have no bearing-- __**I **__am the head of this household." _

_The boy scowled furiously, watching his father with disappointment—and contempt. _

**Shalani uneasily wonders if her own son might not soon look at her with that same contempt. **

"_Now pack a bag and get out," the female said coldly. _

"_You are not forcing Kallea out of the house!" the boy spat out, half angry, half desperate. _

"_Kallea is female. She might yet actually bring some esteem to this family," Zaknafein's mother stated coolly. "If you wanted to stay longer, you should have been a daughter." _

**Shalani is very confused; all of the rules of mothers and fathers, daughters and sons, seem to stand on their heads in this place. **

_Zaknafein turned on his father in fury. "Why do you put up with this?" _

_The older male stared back at him. "Put up with what?" _

"_The way she treats you, treats us! She acts like a Matron Mother!" The boy snorted up a lump of phlegm and spat it out in a vile physical expression of his disgust. _

_The growing boy's mother, larger than he was, punched him hard, and Zaknafein's head snapped back, and though this elf could move with inexplicable swiftness, he made no move to defend himself, taking the punishment as it by long habit. _

_His father laughed. "You ask me why I put up with it; you do the same. It is the lot of the male." _

_Zaknafein rubbed his cheek gingerly. When he spoke, his voice was grim. _

"_Never again." _

_It was the sort of irrational promise, made in the heat of the moment, that was bound to be broken. _

**Shalani is elsewhere. **

_A dusty alleyway, shadowed and dim despite the sun blazing in the distance. A boy will stand there, perhaps thirteen years old. Shalani knows him instantly as her son, but his face will be different. Hard, hating. He will hold a knife in his hand. There will be a dead man lying at his feet. _

"_Pasha Basadoni sends his regards," Artemis will tell the corpse coolly, wiping his knife on the dead man's trousers before sheathing it. He will always walk with cold confidence. _

**Shalani follows him, confused and dismayed for reasons she can't quite explain. **

_Artemis will enter the fortress of a guild house. _

**His mother follows like a ghost of the past. **

_Guards will take up positions on either side of the boy, leading him to the throne room of the pasha, an old man with a deceptively kindly face. _

_Artemis will bow. "Sir." _

"_Ah, my boy! Is it done?" _

"_It is," Artemis will confirm. _

"_Excellent! I knew I could trust you with the job. You're a very talented young man," the pasha will praise Artemis solemnly. _

"_Thank you, sir." Artemis' face will remain inscrutable, but some pleasure will flicker briefly in his eyes. Then it will be gone._

"...who was the new boy?"

"I was just about to get to that," Bethana scolds. "Give me a minute."

Artemis sighs impatiently, but does as his aunt asks, while Shalani regards her six year old son with a new uneasiness, picturing a bloody knife in his hand.

"The new boy hid Mazeppa behind a large collection of tents on the edge of the camp and introduced himself as Lara, the son of one of the bandits. He said that he didn't like it in the camp anymore, and that together they would have a better chance of escape. He warned Mazeppa to keep quiet in his hiding spot while he went to fetch camels.

The new boy ran off into the camp, waving and smiling at the other bandits to avoid suspicion. He retrieved his own camel and then fetched Mazeppa's, telling the handlers that the chief had asked him to bring the new animal for inspection. The camel handlers believed this story and freely handed the camel over. Lara quickly lead the animals through the camp, repeating his story freely to anyone who asked, telling them that the chief was thinking of selling some of the camels, Lara's own among them."

"That was clever," Artemis remarks approvingly.

"Wasn't it, though?" Bethana agrees with a smile. "In fact, it was so clever that he made it to the edge of the camp where Mazeppa was hiding; unfortunately, Lara repeated his story so much that word quickly got back to the chief, who knew very well that he had given no such orders! The chief sent some of his bandits to collect this naughty boy before he could run off with two very good camels. And so, just as Lara and Mazeppa climbed on their mounts and were about to ride off into the desert, a group of angry bandits burst through the collection of tents with their swords drawn!"

Artemis gasps his shock and glee.

**Shalani goes blind once more. This time she is not surprised to find herself in the cave city. **

_It was a courtyard filled with elven soldiers, all wearing the same uniform, a large symbol of some sort woven into their clothing. Collectively, the soldiers were watching two elves battling in the centre of the courtyard. One was a stranger, the other was Zaknafein, again several years older, perhaps on par with a seventeen or eighteen year old human. His two swords were moving with inhuman speed, the grace of his movements was supernatural, so smooth and so violent that it seemed like magic. His opponent was older, looking as grizzled as it is possible for an elf to be, and he fought with an axe and a shield. His strikes were hard, heavy, slower than Zaknafein's, but they had more momentum behind them, and the younger elf spent half of his time avoiding potentially mutilating blows. _

_The older elf's axe landed a punishing blow to one of Zaknafein's swords, clearly sending a heavy shock wave through his arms. He retreated smoothly, giving himself a moment of recovery. _

"_There's the advantage of the heavy weapons right there, boy!" the older elf cried out triumphantly. "You think you know better because you can dance around with your fancy blades! I've been training soldiers for six hundred years; I think I bloody well know my lightdamned business!" _

_Zaknafein looked grim. "I never said you didn't." _

"_Sure, you never said it. But you thought it," the old soldier snarled. "Don't think I don't know what you maggots are thinking. I know all of it. You want to move up around here? Well, start thinking real nice thoughts, boy, or the only place you're going is right back through those gorgeous front gates!" _

**Shalani wonders what the argument is about, but can't quite put it together from the scraps of the exchange. All she knows is that the boy must have manage to get himself hired as a soldier for some noble family, just as his mother wanted, and he looks miserable. **

"_Just you remember who the Weapon Master of House Do'Urden is, boy—me. And it's never going to be you; you might fight a good fight and have a real pretty face, but I'm Matron Vartha's brother. What are you? Still just nameless, houseless, common scum, and insolent to boot. You were born in the gutter, and if I have anything to say about it you'll die there too. Now get back to your fucking post." _

_Zaknafein's face was white-hot with fury and humiliation, his back stiff as a kicked cat's. Such is his expression that, rather than mocking him, the other soldiers edge out of his way. _

**Shalani shivers, recognising the look of a very dangerous man who has just been pushed past his limits.**

**Blink.**

_An alleyway in the middle of the ceiling-city. The grizzled old soldier elf emerged from the side of a building-- looked like a tavern. He sighed with drunken satisfaction, humming to himself. The melody was abruptly cut off by the sword that emerged from the front of his throat. _

"_Who is dying in the gutter now, you old bastard?" a harsh whisper asked. The dying elf dropped to Zaknafein's feet, gaped up at his murderer and expired. _

"...Lara kicked his camel and Mazeppa grinned at him; despite the danger of re-capture, he was excited by the adventure! Mazeppa had an idea; he spurred his camel into the side of a large tent, knocking endless reels of material onto the screaming bandits. Lara followed his example and in the confusion they galloped out of the camp, off into the desert. It would take some time for the bandits to untangle and find mounts of their own, and Lara quickly lead Mazeppa behind clever dunes and into blinding sunspots that would trick the bandits into thinking that they did not see them. Hours go by, hours of galloping across the desert with their foes just out of sight, just about to capture them! But finally the sun began to go down, and the bandits abandoned the chase for the warmth and safety of their tents, thinking that the boys would soon die out in the dunes anyway."

"But they don't," Artemis says calmly.

"Of course they don't. The story would be over then, and I know one clever nephew of mine who wants to hear some more, hmm?"

"Yes, I do, Aunt Beth. What happened next?" The unnatural solemnity has returned to the voice of Shalani's son. She hates it.

"_What is this?" _

**A cold voice is the first thing she hears. Icy with malice and disgust, but utterly controlled**

"_Just havin' a little bit o' fun," the large, burly man with the bright red hair will explain to the shorter, slimmer man of perhaps twenty-two years._

**Shalani recognises the second man as Artemis and peeks forward to see what it is that men are talking about. **

_There will be a child on the bed, no more than six years old and most likely younger than that. Its male gender will be clear because the child will be completely nude. It will not cower or protest the large, hammy fist resting very near to its genitals. Not anymore. Instead, the boy will lie completely still, as if catatonic. His eyes will be glazed and open. _

"_This is not the sort of fun that I will tolerate," Artemis will state flatly. _

"_Good job that you're not the pasha then, innit?" the red-haired giant will sneer. _

"_That, my friend, will not make any difference to you," Artemis will whisper cryptically. The whisper will carry, reaching the man before Artemis, deceptively short and slim, will appear in front of him, a sword and dagger in his hands as if by some unnamed sorcery. The sword will be quickly made redundant as the dagger is going to swiftly start and finish the job. The redhead will fall back, and the horror painted on his face will be so deep._

**Shalani, the hardened street whore who as seen her fair share of corpses, looks away. **

_Artemis will briskly examine the boy on the bed and gently pick up a ratty pile of boy's clothing from the floor to dress him. Throughout this process the child will not move, nor will he react when Artemis picks him up and carries him out the door. _

"_If your parents are looking for you, I'll bring you back to them," Artemis will whisper. "But if they gave you to him, I'll kill them just as surely." _

**Blink. **

_A briskly moving line of elven soldiers marched through a scene of open carnage. Dead elves lay scattered on the floor, the heat rapidly fading from their exposed skin, such that they already appeared as little more than grey shadows disappearing into black stone. _

"_Find the children," the elf at the front of the line barked. _

**Three short rows back and Shalani sees Zaknafein's uneasy face.**

"_Will they take them into the house?" Zaknafein whispered to the elf next to him. "They could be useful, if they're young enough." _

_The other elf shook his head briskly. "Nah. Safer just to kill 'em. Even the really young ones might take in their heads to get revenge someday." _

_Zaknafein nodded; he understood, but the worry did not disappear from his face._

_A female elf appeared before them, wearing long robes covered with embroidered pictures of spiders. She muttered and chanted for a moment and then screamed: "In there!" _

_Her finger pointed to an almost-hidden door in a large stairwell. The line of soldiers followed her lead, bursting into the door and charging down the hallway. It was not long before the soldiers dragged out a group of five elf children, ages ranging from toddlers to adolescents. Laughing cruelly, they killed the eldest children quite quickly. The two youngest children were not so lucky. _

"_Hi there, little girl," one of the soldiers cackled at a lovely, curly-haired child barely old enough to understand the words. Her stunning eyes were huge in her head, understanding that this was no friend. Instinctively, she started screaming. _

"_No, we don't need any of that," the soldier corrected her. He pulled a belt knife and forced her jaw open. One swift motion and it was done. The little girl's tongue was bleeding and red in the soldier's hand. He laughed and threw it back at her, into her hands, like a gruesome toy. Silent tears ran down her soft cheeks and a pile of urine appeared under her body as it gave up in terror._

**Though Shalani is not really there, she wants to throw up. **

_Another soldier grabbed a slightly older boy, repeated the same process, and then summarily raped the boy. The group of adult elves transformed from a disciplined military force into a jeering mob in a matter of seconds, mocking the struggles of the children. _

_Zaknafein trembled. His jaw was slack with some unnamed motion and his hands were shaking. His breath came short and his eyes were are so large in his face that it seemed they would literally be pushed out of his head. Now he did not look beautiful. He looked trapped and sick. _

"_Hey, you wanna go?" asked the elf with whom Zaknafein had earlier spoken._

"_What?" Zaknafein asked numbly. His voice sounded as padded as thick cotton. _

"_They're not dead yet. Which ever one you want, big boy!" _

"_Yeah," Zaknafein whispered. He walked toward to the children with a sudden swagger and the crowd of soldiers parted, inviting him to take his pick. He hesitated a moment. _

**Shalani wonders if he will really do it. **

_Eventually the soft cheeks, animal whimpers and pleading eyes of the little girl won him over. He grasped her body roughly. There was a puddle of urine underneath her and her clothes stank of the faeces she'd released in her fear. _

"_She's covered in shit and piss," Zaknafein roughly swore. "I'm certainly not going to fuck her." _

_The other soldiers laughed. _

"_Listen to you!" one of them hooted. "You'd think you were a noble—such delicate sensibilities!" _

"_I don't have to be a fucking noble to not want to get shit all over my prick, Vanar," Zaknafein sneered. "Of course, if you're turned on by that, you're welcome to come with me next time I use the privy."_

_The other soldiers howled with derisive amusement, even Vanar grinning at the mock-offer. _

_Zaknafein ignored them and grasped the little girl's head cruelly, bringing it down onto the stone floor with with brutal strength. A sharp crack broke through the air. What the other soldiers did not see, _**(but****whatShalanidoes)**_, is the quick twist of the elf's strong hands, the way he broke the girl's neck, killing her before the floor smashed open her tender skull. Blood ran over the stone and all over Zaknafein's capable hands, but he did not stop, forcefully ramming the child's head onto the hard surface until the once-sweet face was utterly obliterated and pieces of skull wreathed what was left of the girl-- a hellish halo, ruby heat fading only slowly into the abyss. Zaknafein let out a howl, so animal and terrifying that even the other soldiers quieted somewhat, uneasy awe at this display of beastly violence muffling their cruelly musical, crudely shouting voices. _

**Shalani wants so much to cry, but cannot. Her throat hurts. She sobs dryly. She can't stop looking at the corpse. This terrible, terrible, terrible thing. **

_Zaknafein kneeled over it, his face hidden under a curtain of long white hair. His breath sounded wetly; his inhalations were heavy and brutish. _

**Shalani finds that she must kneel down and look under that silvery veil, and what she sees does not surprise her. **

_Thick, wet tears rolled down the elf's razor sharp cheek bones. Agony contorted his face and he was biting through his lip to keep from audibly sobbing. The veins in his neck bulged with the force of his clenched jaw. _

"_Hey, Zak," one of the other soldiers tentatively said. "We have to get moving." _

"_Yeah, I'm coming," Zaknafein rasped. His voice sounded as raw as that of a man who has been screaming for hours, but he quickly got to his feet. The tears were gone, and his expression was stony, unreadable. He glanced at the dying boy child, fading in a slow agony of ruptured organs, and whipped a throwing knife, produced from some hidden pocket. The knife thudded into the boy's chest with lethal accuracy, and the child's eyes closed a few seconds later. _

"_No more time for play." Zaknafein explained his action away callously._

"_Yeah. We should get going before Weapon Master Bellus gets here. The arse-licking cunt," the other elf snorted. _

"_Better than Matron Vartha's brother was," one of the other soldiers interjected. "He was too good to be an arse-licker. A real noble, so of course he had to remind us of it every fucking day. Eh, Zak?" he jabbed pointedly. _

_Zaknafein grunted disinterestedly. _

"_Did they ever find out who did the old bugger in anyway?" another elf asked as the group pushed back out of the tunnel. _

"_No," someone answered. "And I hope they never do. Whoever did it deserves a lightdamned prize." _

"_Isn't that the truth." _

_Zaknafein said nothing, falling into line. His eyes were empty. His face was slack. _

**Shalani thinks a zombie would look more alive than this elf. **

"Mazeppa tells Lara of his quest to find the one true friend who will perfectly understand him and Lara decides that this is a wonderful idea. He resolves to join Mazeppa on his quest and look for his one true friend."

"I know the ending!" Artemis interrupts triumphantly.

"Oh?" Bethana is amused.

"_It is not too late to repent, to return to the light of the goodly gods, my son," the human in the long, exquisite purple robe with the gold thread embroidery will say. _

_Artemis will laugh, his chuckles tight and furious with underlying bitterness. _

"_Come back to the ways of the goodly gods, priest? The ones that give you such riches to wear when children starve on the steets? I'll take my chances with oblivion."_

_The priest will not have time to cry out before Artemis cuts his throat, and dark blood will soak the purple robe black. _

"It's so easy," six year old Artemis brags.

"_Why so fearful, cleric?" Zaknafein whispered cruelly to the female dying under his knife. "Do you not rejoice that you will soon meet your goddess face to face?"_

_The female tried to curse him, but the ruined stub of her tongue was coiled in Zaknafein's whip, three feet away from her mouth. Zaknafein laughed quietly, a cruel edge to his voice, and slowly, slowly, cut into her throat, his movements as delicate as the fluttering of a grey moth's wings._

_It took a very long time for the priestess to die. _

**Blink.**

"_You're the undisputed master assassin of Faerun. None dare stand against you, and all who know your name fear you. Doesn't that make you happy, Artemis Entreri?" a fat man in silk will ask Shalani's son. Artemis will be almost thirty years old, hard and inscrutable. _

"_It is satisfying, Pasha Pook. It does not make me happy," Artemis will correct the fat pasha. _

"_You charge a heavy fee, as befits one of your skills, but you do nothing with your money! Do you have no desire for a more fulfilling life?"_

"_I am fulfilled by my craft; I need nothing else."_

**Shalani's ghostly hand traces her grown son's cheek.**

_He will not feel it. _

**Blink.**

**Shalani sees a bar filled with drow, strange dwarves and even stranger creatures**.

_Zaknafein sat at a table alone, drinking straight from a bottle of wine, when the door to the tavern burst open to admit an unnaturally huge elf. He held an enormous trident in one hand and his ears dangled with heavy gold hoops. A gorgeous mane of thick white hair swept past his waist, brushed and pruned to utter, shining perfection. _

"_Zaknafein Do'Urden now, is it? Patron and Weapon Master of the thirteen house of Menzoberranzan!" he roared, sending customers scattering. "They say that you're the best!"_

"_Do they now?" Zaknafein asked. He was an adult now. He wore heavier armour , a more elaborate uniform, and his hair was growing out. _

"_Talk is growing," the enormous elf grunted. "They've seen you in action. What they haven't seen is you fighting any of your challengers!"_

"_Challengers?" Amused._

"_Don't be stupid! I issued a challenge myself and you never responded."_

_The slight smile on the other elf's face vanished. His retort was annoyed. "If you want to talk about stupidity, you've only to look as far as battles of ego."_

"_I challenge you right here, right now in this bar, and if you don't fight me I'll run you through, coward!"_

_Zaknafein snorted and stood up. "If I must." Unceremoniously, he drew his swords. _

_The people in the bar retreated to the sides, and money began to change hands. Odds were lain and excited speculation was thick in the air._

"_What do I get if I win, Uthegental?" Zaknafein asked casually. _

_The huge elf, Uthegental, was flabbergasted. "What do you get?! What do you think you get! Fame, glory, the satisfaction of knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that you're the best, the greatest of all of Menzoberranzan's warriors!"_

_Zaknafein was unimpressed. "Menzoberranzan is a small place. There's always someone better somewhere; no, I think I want something more substantial in return for my troubles."_

"_Money?" Uthegental exclaimed incredulously, as if unable to believe the crassness of the terms. _

"_Of course not. I already have as much coin as I need. No..." the other elf was thoughtful. "They say that you're very proud of your hair, Uthegental. That you've been growing it for centuries. That you spend more time in from of the mirror than the vainest female." He grinned mockingly. _

_Uthegental roared and charged furiously, his trident leading the way. Zaknafein nimbly avoided the bullish attack. _

"_If I win, you're going to cut it."_

_His voice cut through the fog of rage obscuring his opponent's reason and Uthegental stood, dumbfounded, while every being in the crowd, mostly strange dwarves, gnomes and but a few ragged-looking elves, sucked in a unified breath of thrilled horror. _

"_If you win, I'll be dead," Uthegental stated slowly. _

"_I'm not interested in killing you; I'm interested in letting you know exactly how much this annoys me. If you don't agree to the terms, I'm not fighting."_

"_Then you will die!!" The big soldier attempted to regain his former confidence. _

_Zaknafein smiled coldly. "I don't think so."_

_Slowly, the crowd began to chant. "Accept the terms. Accept the terms. ACCEPT THE TERMS!"_

_Uthegental looked about in a panic, trapped by the public venue he chose. If he did not accept, it would look as thought he expected to lose, and the crowd would turn against him. There might be rioting; the challenge would be interrupted. He might never get this chance again._

"_Very well!" Uthegental screamed. "I accept!"_

_The bar roared its thrilled approval. Zaknafein's swords came up to meet Uthegental. The huge drow charged, leading with his unnatural strength the razor sharp points of his trident, clutched in his right hand, a sword in his left hand. Zaknafein parried the sword and allowed the other drow's weight to over-balance his right side, moving back from the trident's action and repositioning himself to Uthegental's left. The other elf was quickly wise to this, moving his body with expert timing to confront Zaknafein once more. Once the younger elf was in his sights, he threw the trident with a dangerous speed. Zaknafein dropped into a roll and the trident whisked over his head, only to magically re-eappear in Uthegental's hand. Zaknafein sneered at this. _

"_Magic? I thought you were supposed to be good."_

"_I am good. But I am also drow," Uthegental smirked back._

"_So you are." _

_A flick of the wrist and Zaknafein held the long length of his whip in his hand. It cracked, unpleasantly loud, and lashed Uthegental's left hand. The other elf did not let his sword drop, but the instant he took to tighten his grip was all that Zaknafein needed. He allowed the recoil of the whip's length to speed his journey to Uthegental's side where his left-hand sword moved with the speed of a viper. He feigned a jab to the ribs; Uthegental moved to defend and the other elf's sword dropped immediately to the belly. Zaknafein was too close to attack with the long-range trident, and he was blocking Uthegental's sword. Uthegental immediately allowed his body to become a dead weight. He took a scratch along the stomach, but disengaged from the uncomfortably close contact. _

_Zaknafein moved back as well. His whip had disappeared, and his supreme, focused confidence was undiminished. Having taken the other soldier's measure, he moved in with a series of moves so quickly executed that they were a mere blur to the eyes. The bar's customers were blinking rapidly. _

_Uthegental blocked the movements of the other elf and then countered with a series of pokes and jabs from his trident. Zaknafein was on the defensive and wore a studied expression until he retook the offensive. The two warriors fell into a rhythmic pattern of attack and defence and the crowd gazed at the display, rapt in awe at the unimaginable skill, until Zaknafein slipped out of Uthegental's range of movement--though he was clearly expecting the trident again because he had no troubles fending off the heavy weapon when it flew at him. _

_Uthegental grinned savagely and immediately hurled his sword at the other elf. Zaknafein rolled to the side, but the trident reappeared in Uthegental's hands and he threw it again at Zaknafein and charged, retrieving his sword as he moved closer. Zaknafein's arm was grazed by the point of the trident's outer-most prong. He winced visibly. _

_Uthegental roared his triumph and charged his injured opponent. _

**Shalani watches the sword as it moves ever-closer to Zaknafein. **

_The crowd held its breath. _

_At the last moment, Zaknafein dropped his right hand sword and rolled to the side. Uthegental could not stop his forward momentum and Zaknafein came to his feet. _

_**Crack!**_

_Zaknafein's whip was curled in a loop any sailor would be proud of--around Uthegental's throat. Zaknafein's sword was not long in joining it._

"_I've had enough. What about you?"_

_Uthegental roared his fury once more. _

"_And I've had enough of that, too. Do I cut your throat right here, or do you keep your word?"_

_Uthegental glared sulkily at the crowd, but it was clear that the blade at his throat was far from comfortable._

"_How about I make the choice easier for you?"_

_Zaknafein gathered a thick handful of the other elf's glorious white mane, jerked his head backwards, and in one swift motion sawed it away. What was left is a pitiful ruin, jagged and ugly. _

"_I'm letting you go now, Uthegental Armgo, but if you attack me again--I will kill you."_

_The words were spoken in a calm, almost disinterested voice. Uthegental clenched his teeth against clear humiliation and finally grunted his agreement. Zaknafein's wrist flickered and suddenly the whip around Uthegental's throat vanished. So did the sword. _

_The bar muttered its approval. Uthegental turned to glare furiously at his audience._

"_A word of this—a single word!--and I will not rest until the day every last one of you drider-shits are dead! I am of the second house—I have the power to make it happen."_

_An uneasy ripple passed through the crowd. Already people were disappearing. Zaknafein carelessly returned to his table and his bottle of wine, There were white hairs all over the bar floor; Uthegental stared at the other drow for a long time. _

"_You did not even take my hair as a trophy."_

_Zaknafein looked up. "Why would I? I never wanted the fight to begin with. It's a stupid game I'm not interested in playing."_

_Uthegental did not understand. "It is a game we all play. It is the only chance for glory that a male has—to compete and to know who is the best, the most skilled."_

"_Perhaps. But did I not already say: there is always someone better. I will not compete for a title more ephemeral than the air we breath."_

"_Then what is it you want?"_

_Zaknafein met the other soldier's eyes with his own. "I don't know."_

_Uthegental waited for another minute, waited to see if Zaknafein would say anything else. Zaknafein did not. Finally, Uthegental nodded with something like grudging respect, thoughtfully retrieved his weapons, sheathed his sword, and walked out the door, _

"...what do you think the end of the story is then, Artemis?"

"I think that--"

"_You amuse me, human," an unlikely looking elf will say, He will wear an enormous hat, an eye patch, loud clothing and more jewellery than is worn by most merchant wives. "What is that you seek to gain from such a fight?"_

"_To prove than I am better than he is." The words will emerge from Shalani's son when he is perhaps thirty five years old. His voice will be cold and his eyes bitter. _

"_Of course," the elf will murmur soothingly. "But is that all?"_

"_All? What else is there?"_

_The strange elf will chuckle. "If you were drow, I would believe such a statement, but as much as you resemble us in some ways, I sense...conflict."_

"_There is no conflict. Drizzt Do'Urden simply...offends me. And I am not used to being beaten."_

"_Offends you? How offends you?" The elf will be very curious. _

"_He simply offends me. I have no wish to discuss the matter with a stranger. I am willing to assist you if you will give you what me I want. Do we have a deal?"_

_The loudly clothed elf will laugh and look very amused. "Of course, my friend. Of course. The whole matter simply makes me curious; that is all. But then I was always too easily amused."_

_Artemis will glare suspiciously, clearing agreeing with this self-assessment._

**Shalani is confused. What are they talking about? Do'Urden...didn't the elf Uthegental mention such a name right as he--**

"...Mazeppa and Lara will have lots of adventures together, looking for friends to understand them, but they'll never find them. And then just at the end--"

_--Zaknafein was in bed when the females came for him. They woke him with a blow and rough words and marched him to stand before another strange female. The conversation that followed was confusing, but one thing was clear: the elf was going to die. And so he did. _

**Shalani looks away when the pronged knife pierces his chest. She covers her ears futilely to block out Zaknafein's unimaginable scream when the female pulls the knife back out again, the heart giving one last beat on the blade. Shalani watches as the life leaves the prone soldier's eyes, watches the inexplicable transformation of something that walked and talked and hoped and loved and fought into just another piece of dead meat. She shivers, daunted by the familiar helplessness, the ephemeral inevitability of mortality-- fragile lilies withering on their vines. **

**She turns away from the stone altar. She closes her eyes. She does not wish to be here anymore...**

"--THEY FIND OUT THAT THEY WERE LOOKING FOR EACH OTHER ALL ALONG!" Artemis screams with six-year triumph, revelling in his own perceptive genius.

Bethana laughs. "There's no keeping anything from you."

_Blasted, twisted gates, once regal and magnificent, now covered in rocks and dust, will lie pitifully on the stone floor of the cavern. Something that might once have been a door will gape like an open wound in the cavern wall-- a wound that will have long ago ceased to bleed. The compound beyond the door will be a dead place, a corpse with the last memories of carnage echoing in its terrifying halls, a thousand twisted, intricate, mad carvings leering mockingly from the polished walls. _

"_What is this place?" Artemis Entreri will whisper, unnerved despite his years, despite the fact that he will have already faced many of the horrors, both above and below ground, that Faerun has to offer._

"_I thought you might like to see it, my friend!" the brightly dressed elf next to him will exclaim. _

"_See what?"_

_The elf will chuckle. "Drow justice. This is all that is left of the House of Do'Urden, Daermon N'a'shezbaernon—eighth house of Menzoberranzan by the night of its fall. Such a pity."_

_Artemis will regard the shattered compound with a new curiosity. "Do'Urden?"_

"_Oh, yes. Your greatest enemy--" the elf will pronounce the words with a mocking flare "--grew up here. Drizzt Do'Urden, Secondboy of Do'Urden, youngest child of Matron Malice Do'Urden and only son of the famed Weapon Master Zaknafein. Who was a good friend of mine, actually," the elf will remark lightly, casually. He will wink at the assassin playfully. "You remind me of him sometimes. You probably would have got on famously together."_

_Artemis will frown sceptically, his expression edged with subtle but penetrating distaste. "What could I possibly have in common with Do'Urden's father?"_

_The elf will shrug and switch his eye patch from one side of his face to the other. "Oh--this and that. Some things more than others, of course."_

_Artemis will lose interest in the conversation. His eyes will sweep over the fallen ruin of House Do'Urden. _

_He will not see the very brief flicker of regret in the eyes of the elf behind him. _

"Mama? Mama, can you hear me?"

Shalani blinks her eyes and turns away from the window. She feels ill.

"Mama?" Artemis looks worried, his little face screwed doubtfully.

"Yes, yes, I can hear you, Artemis. And I think it's time you went to bed, my son."

Artemis looks disappointed, but nods with resignation and gets up from the couch.

"Mama, do you think that I'll ever find a friend like that?"

"Like what?" Shalani asks irritably.

"Like the boy in the story found. Someone who understands me. The perfect friend." Artemis looks far too wistful for a six year old. Shalani wishes for a less precocious child.

"No. I don't."

"Shali!" Bethana scolds her sister, inclining her head towards Artemis' suddenly wounded eyes.

"Why not?" Artemis asks slowly.

_Because he's already dead._

"Because there's no such thing. Now get to bed before your father and uncle come home."

Artemis shifts uncomfortably and nods. Shalani takes pity on him and briefly enfolds him in her embrace before sending him back to his room.

Shalani ignores her sister, not doubting she will soon be getting a lecture on the proper treatment of small children. She turns back to the window, watches the empty street.

And wonders.

THE END

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A Note from the Author

Well, now that you're all thoroughly confused, I thought I'd explain a couple of things. One--this story is an homage to my OTP. I know--very sad, considering that there are only two Zaknafein/Artemis stories ever written: Anya al'Nighter's Insanity in General and Linndechir's Kindred Spirits (still in progress). I love both of the those stories, but I decided that I needed to throw in my own two cents. In short, I wanted to demonstrate the ways in which Zaknafein and Artemis were alike, but also the ways in which they were different. They are not foils, as Drizzt and Artemis are, but distorted reflections of each other. Okay, that actually is the definition of a foil, but the fact remains that they are too similar to be foils. Though there are some key differences. Zak has a sense of humour, for one thing, ha ha.

I chose the scenes that I wanted to show with a great deal of care. Quite a few possibilities were thrown out, including showing Zak in some sort of scenes with Jarlaxle. I decided that it would have been incidental, if amusing.

A lot of you are probably wondering why I chose to turn Entreri's mother into some sort of untrained seer. No, she's not my Mary Sue. She my narrator; she is the eyes through which the story is told. She becomes the speaker of the story, even if she does not ever entirely understand what it is that she is seeing. Whether or not this in any way resembles canon is again entirely incidental and irrelevant, because her part in this story in no way changes the future; furthermore, every picks and chooses what they want to take from the, it seems, universally hated Sellswords trilogy. I took the names of Artemis' canon parents and a little bit of his canon past and used it to construct a series of interlocking symbolic representations. (I know this sounds like utter bullshit, but I need to be this abstract to explain away the fact that I just picked what I wanted and threw away the rest;) I did keep in mind that this is a woman who would eventually sell her child, so she's not the best mother, but I wanted a fully human narrator, and I wanted to show where she was coming from, so she is by no means a flat character; however, I refused to make her into the caring, rather saintly image of a broken woman that Artemis imagines in the Road of the Patriarch. No matter how ill such a woman was, she wouldn't sell her kid. That's just absurd.

The names:

Matron Vartha: This is from Homeland. Matron Malice's mother. She apparently died when Malice was roughly one hundred years of age.

Weapon Master Bellus: Not take from canon, but the name is clearly derived from the Latin word for war, an entirely appropriate allusion for a warrior.

Bethana: The sister from who died in Louisa May Alcott's book "Little Women" was called Beth. (Pathetic, eh?) I expect that Artemis' aunt died shortly after this story.

Mazzepa: Name taken from Lord Byron's epic poem. I love Byron.

Lara: Likewise a hero of Byron. A man's name. Hey, if Artemis can be a man's name, so can Lara.

Regarding Zaknafein's early life: It is well known that he was a commoner, so I placed him in a common setting. His mother in particular demonstrates something that I know quite a few people believe about the drow: that the commoners are probably slightly nicer than the nobles, simply because they must be more generous to each other in order to survive. Zak's mother is pretty nasty, but she rarely hits her son, and she allows him more freedom than any noble mother would; however, she's not a suffering soul who hates her society; nor is her husband. I don't like this idea of morals being in some fashion hereditary, as much as RAS would love to lead us down that particular primrose path.

Additionally, commoners speak rather less elegantly than nobles. I'm sorry if you didn't like it, but it's a simple truth. Wherever you have people who are less educated and wealthy, they are going to take less care with their manners. It's just one of the many drawbacks of a class system. Zaknafein has also always seemed to me less "polished" than the members of House Do'Urden who were born noble.

I also gave Zak a sister, just to fill out the background. We never see her.Who knows what happened to her. Probably became a common cleric and joined some other house and never saw her brother again.

Re: Uthegental's hair. I loved writing this bit. I took the idea from the Menzoberranzan 2nd edition boxed set. It included some different inserts on the top noble houses, including a note that Uthegental once had a glorious mane of gorgeous hair, and that it had long been rumoured that he lost it in a duel with Zaknafein Do'Urden. In order for there to be a rumour, someone had to see it, so I placed the event in a bar in Manyfolk; however, considering the kind of people that lived there, the story remained a rumour, rather than a knowntruth. Uthegental never grew his hair back because he wanted people to think that he chose to cut it off, ha ha. Also, I gave him a magical trident. Just because I thought he might like one.

And that's all she wrote. I think.


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